Valve’s October Steam Survey: CachyOS leads Linux distributions, 16 GB RAM returns

Valve’s October 2026 Steam Hardware Survey put CachyOS ahead of SteamOS among Linux distributions, with CachyOS at 0.65 percent and SteamOS at 0.55 percent. 16 GB of RAM returned to the top of the memory rankings, reaching 41.42 percent after a gain of 3.60 points, while 32 GB dropped 5.16 points to 37.06 percent. Linux accounted for 3.95 percent of Steam users, up 0.90 points, against 93.70 percent for Windows.

Within the Linux subset of the October survey, CachyOS held 16.39 percent of Linux Steam users, down 1.73 points from September. SteamOS Holo, the system on Steam Deck handhelds, fell 3.48 points to 13.89 percent. Arch Linux stood at 8.92 percent, Linux Mint 22.3 at 8.41 percent, Bazzite at 6.74 percent, and a separate SteamOS category appeared at 8.09 percent, a gain of 8.09 points.

Joho no Todai reported CachyOS at 18.12 percent of the Linux gaming population in September, up 2.65 percentage points, edging SteamOS Holo at 17.37 percent. The distro had grown steadily through 2026, from 13.36 percent in May to 14.03 percent in June and 15.47 percent in August. Lunar Computer says CachyOS ships with performance-oriented defaults that rival SteamOS, making it competitive among gaming-focused Linux users.

CachyOS is a distribution used only by people who chose to install it themselves, while SteamOS ships preinstalled on Steam Deck, Joho no Todai points out. The same outlet reports Steam Deck 2 has reportedly been pushed to 2028 or later, so SteamOS will not get a boost from new hardware.

According to Valve’s official Linux survey data, AuthenticAMD processors represented 66.25 percent of Linux respondents, with GenuineIntel at 33.03 percent. The Steam Deck GPU appeared on 10.13 percent of video cards, up 1.53 points, making it the leading individual video card entry in the Linux breakdown. Linux systems with 16 GB of system RAM reached 43.99 percent, up 3.14 points. Systems with 32 GB stood at 29.27 percent, down 3.17 points.

Lunar Computer notes that AMD APUs power both the Steam Deck and the newer Steam Machine, anchoring much of AMD’s CPU share among Linux Steam users. The outlet also credits AMD’s longstanding commitment to open-source GPU and CPU drivers through the Mesa and kernel AMDGPU stacks for making Linux a natural platform for enthusiasts building their own gaming rigs.

Across all Steam users, NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 and GeForce RTX 5070 matched at 3.78 percent each. The RTX 5070 was down 2.37 points from September. Windows CPUs running Intel reached 53.48 percent, up 0.89 points. AMD slipped to 46.51 percent.

AMD’s overall CPU share stood at 47.4 percent in October, down from 48.4 percent in September but ahead of the 46.5 percent recorded in August. Digital Foundry reports that AMD’s GPU share went back to its August 2026 level of 18.7 percent after a September drop of two percentage points. NVIDIA’s share similarly returned to its August total following a three percent gain.

ShiftDelete.Net says DRAM and NAND faced short supplies in 2026, which made bigger RAM kits expensive for new PC builders. Memory makers like Kioxia are riding out a volatile market, which has contributed to the shortages and higher prices for larger kits. In September, 32 GB of system RAM briefly overtook 16 GB at 42.22 percent, up 4.77 points, while 16 GB fell to 37.82 percent, down 3.38 points.

1920 × 1080 reached 50.23 percent, up 2.32 points. 2560 × 1440 fell 5.22 points to 21.82 percent and 4K stayed at 5.05 percent. The most common VRAM capacity was 8 GB at 26.92 percent. 16 GB followed at 26.35 percent, and 12 GB stood at 12.91 percent.

Meta Quest 3 stayed in first place among VR headsets at 27.27 percent. Valve’s recently released Steam Frame headset rose 3.72 points to 4.13 percent of surveyed headsets.

Simplified Chinese-language participation fell by 9.41 percentage points to 21.98 percent. English rose to 39.04 percent. Wccftech and ShiftDelete.Net tie part of the monthly movement to a changing language mix among respondents.

Digital Foundry points to theories that intensive Steam use in territories like China during national holidays, or differences in Valve’s sampling methods, drive the swings. Michael Larabel of Phoronix has noted that Windows tends to gain and Linux to lose share when Chinese Steam users make up a larger share of survey responses.

Wccftech cautions the voluntary, anonymous survey is a snapshot of participating users rather than a definitive picture of the whole PC gaming market. Joho no Todai states that Valve does not release total concurrent-user numbers broken down by operating system, so it cannot be determined whether Linux’s absolute user count is falling. Digital Foundry expects the November 2026 survey to restore normality after October’s unusual fluctuations.

ShiftDelete.Net says developers should still target a midrange Nvidia PC with 16 GB of RAM and a 1080p display as the typical Steam machine. The October survey also showed reversals in memory, graphics cards, and screen resolution at the same time, undoing unusual moves from September.

In September 2026, Linux’s overall Steam share fell to 3.05 percent, down 0.85 points from roughly 5.33 percent in March. Simplified Chinese responses reached 31.39 percent of Steam users in September 2026, up 7.42 points. Windows 10’s share of Steam users reached 23.61 percent in September, a gain of 0.71 points.

The GeForce RTX 5070 reached 5.86 percent of the GPU sample in September, up 2.30 points from its July figure of 3.62 percent, to take first place outright. Meta Quest 3 led VR headsets at 26.90 percent, up 0.89 points, ahead of the Oculus Quest 2 at 25.80 percent.